IIT-Kanpur students bag award for creating a Braille slate

Students of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur received Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award-2017 for they were able to develop a working prototype of a Braille slate called ‘Anubhav.’ They were bestowed with the award at the function held at Rashtrapati Bhawan on March 5.

Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYIT) Award is given to encourage the spirit of innovation among students from all fields of engineering, science, technology and design.

First of a kind device which helps visually impaired to read and write simultaneously

Sachin NP and Vimal Chandru were students of design program under the guidance of Prof Shantanu Bhattacharya when the idea to develop Anubhav was initiated. At that time there was no single device which can help the visually impaired people in writing and reading simultaneously.

Sachin now working in German Company said “The award is a reward for our hard work. It will inspire us to do more innovation and bring about a change in society. Technology should be used for the betterment and welfare of society.”

“So we thought of sorting out the issue. The idea was to make a single device that can perform the functions of both the Braille slate and the Taylor’s board,” said Sachin and Vimal.

“The device has been tested with visually impaired children in Kanpur (Andh Vidyalaya students), and the results have been very encouraging,” claimed Sachin, adding, “This project has been in progress for the past one year. ‘Anubhav’ was the result of thorough research. Now, we are trying to approach the state government to make this product available in the market.”

SAP program introduced by IIT-Kharagpur: Students now will be able to study for two semesters abroad

Students of premium Indian Institute Technology Kharagpur will now be able to study broad as “Semester Away Program (SAP)” has been introduced by the university. After the completion of this course students will have the opportunity to study a semester or two at any foreign or Indian university before they complete their official course.

PK Das, dean of the Post-Graduate program said, “A student will be able to choose an institution in India or abroad and a course offered by them. They will choose the course, take the approval of the faculty and apply. The university does not necessarily have to be one we have MoU (memorandum of understanding) with. If chosen, the students will be able to go there for one or a maximum of two semesters.”

“Studying in the top universities across the globe will add to their CV. The national/international exposure to the top institutes will make them more employable,” Professor Das further added.

However, the catch is that students will have to make their own arrangement for the course fee. If the institution has MOU with the host university, or if student bags a scholarship then to some extent their tuition and hostel fee could be waived but, for the most part students are responsible for their own arrangement.

Later on, we will try to arrange for alumni endowment for this purpose,“ said Sriman K Bhattacharyya, deputy director of IIT-Kgp.

Pearl Academy: IGNOU’s new affiliated study center

Perl Academy, which is famous as a leading institute for design, fashion and creative business in India, is a new recognized study center for the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and will offer the courses in its Delhi NCR and Mumbai region campuses.

As a new study center for IGNOU, Pearl Academy will offer Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in English, sociology, political science and history and B.Com courses. These are the two new courses which will be offered in addition to the IGNOU’s already established creative courses.

The study centers are open to anyone who is willing to pursue these IGNOU courses.

Commenting on this latest tie up with the IGNOU academy, Nandita Abraham, CEO pearl Academy said in a statement,“ We are excited to offer IGNOU learning framework to our students. As a study center, we will be able to offer courses that will enable our students to pursue holistic learning and gain knowledge not just in their chosen creative domain but also in more conventional streams of education.”

Sharing his thoughts on the tie up Dr. Ravindra Kumar, Vice chancellor IGNOU, said “We are pleased to welcome Pearl Academy as our partner to offer IGNOU courses at their campuses in Delhi NCR and Mumbai. The courses will be offered through open and distance learning modes. I would like to encourage all Pearl Academy students to take up these courses and enhance their learning horizons.”

Rajasthan’s government decision forced 500 teachers to quit

Rajasthan government decision to make medical officers equivalent to the medical teachers forced 500 teachers at the Jaipur’s Sawai Man Singh College to quit. These teachers quit to demonstrate their protest against the Rajasthan’s government decision.

According to the faculty members, the Rajasthan government on March 7 introduced a lateral entry into the teaching line and they are fooling the people by using the word equivalent for the same.

According to the reports Dr Dhananjai Agarwal, RMCTA secretary said “medical officers are not qualified to teach students in medical colleges as they perform non-teaching duties. He said the government requires teachers from SMS Medical College and various other colleges to be served as faculty members in the eight upcoming institutes and replace them with medical officers.”

New and upcoming institutes

Vasundra Raje’s government is coming up with the new institutions in:

AlwarBarmerChuruDungarpurBhilwaraPaliSikar

The academic session is expected to start from 2017-18. Further Dr. Agarwal added “ if these medical officers are deployed in the new colleges and made equivalent to medical teachers, then Medical Council of India will cancel the affiliation.”

“If eligibility and experience of these medical officers are made ‘equivalent’ to medical teachers and seen from the perspective of MCI guidelines, then things would become very clear whether this decision is right or not. We have demanded that the government withdraw this order and if it does not then it must accept our resignations from Thursday”, he said.

Detailed Analysis: CBSE class 12th English Exam

The English exam for class 12 was conducted by the CBSE on March 9 and below is the detailed analysis of the exam held.

Section A: Reading Comprehension

There were two to three tricky questions in the first two unseen passages of the exam which called for the thorough reading of the passages; however, the vocabulary questions were quite easy.A slight change in this year’s comprehension was in question ‘g’ where students were asked to give their own opinion, which is not so common as far as comprehensions are concerned.Passage given for the note making was not difficult as it was based on the topic ‘pollution’ which any student can tackle very easily.

Section B: Writing

Both the options provided in the exam carried ‘notice writing’ which dispirited the students, as such choice was also not so obvious based on previous exam pattern.Letter writing was easy as sufficient inputs were given which made the question fairly simple.Articles were related to current affairs which were boon for the students who were aware of them from the newspaper reading.Fair amount of input made the report writing easy.The question on speech was tricky as instead of mentioning about the achievements in the sports, it was more focused on the empowering women and the challenges they face in sports

Section C: Literature

Literature section was fair enough as it carried a good balance of direct and incident questions.Some questions were indeed tricky.Question number 10 was thought provoking which provided students with the canvas to display their caliber.Questions from novel were indeed challenging but they were a reward for them who have studied them with earnest effort.

SBI now provides work from home facility

In a recent major announcement, State Bank of India, which is the largest commercial bank in terms of assets, deposits, profits, branches, customers and employees is now providing the facility of ‘work from home’ to its employees.

This initiative was taken to address any urgent requirement of the employee which prevents his/her traveling to the workplace.

Official statements from the bank

According to official statement, the employees will be using mobile computing technologies.Also, employees need to have continuous control over all the enabled devices centrally to manage and secure the data on the mobile devicesTo ensure smooth functioning of work at home, the use of technology and services shall be monitored through carefully designed MIS and dashboard to enable improvements and refinements.

In order to increase its productivity multi-fold the bank said “ Marketing, CRM, social media management, settlement and reconciliation, complaints management applications will be enabled to make the work from home services comprehensive and increase the employee productivity.”

List of other top MNCs from the world which offers ‘work from home facility’

IBMAbout.comDellAppleFirst Data

About SBI

In 1806, Bank of Calcutta was founded and later in 1921, it merged with the bank of Madras and Bombay and Imperial bank of India came into existence. In 1955, an act was passed for the formation of SBI to succeed the Imperial Bank of India.